1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an access management system, access management method, access management server, cooperation server, and computer-readable medium for efficiently managing user accounts in an online print service system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the keyword “cloud computing” or “cloud” has become widespread, mainly in the IT industry. A shift from a model in which conventional computer hardware and software are purchased/utilized to a model in which services on the Internet are purchased/utilized has accelerated.
An example of such a service model is SaaS (Software as a Service) in which a service provider provides software through the Internet and a service user uses the desired software mainly by means of a browser. A service provider need only construct a Web site for providing software on the Internet, and need not distribute the software. A service user need not install dedicated software on his/her computer, and can generally use the desired software using only a browser and its plugin.
To use a service provided in cloud computing, it is common for a user to register his or her account. Each user logs into a service with a user account to use the service. It is cumbersome for an administrator to manually manage registration/invalidation/deletion of user accounts. In particular, deletion of user accounts is an important management operation in order to prevent user accounts not in use from being fraudulently used.
According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-18156, it is proposed to provide a new state, “scheduled deletion”, in addition to “normal” and “deletion”. A user ID set in the scheduled deletion state is temporarily invalidated, and is then physically deleted after an expiration date. By introducing the scheduled deletion state, it is possible to give a grace period until a user ID is physically deleted, and to validate the user ID again as needed. Furthermore, assume that a user ID may be used again in future. In this case, by setting an appropriate expiration date, and setting the user ID in the scheduled deletion state, it is possible to validate the user ID again without re-generating a user ID. This gives flexibility to a management operation of deleting a user ID, thereby reducing the administrator's labor.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-18156, however, if the same user ID is reused, the following two problems arise. First, after an expiration date, it is necessary to newly re-generate a user ID. In this case, the administrator or the user has to newly generate a user ID even if they do not wish to. Second, in the “scheduled deletion” state, data such as a user ID and its attribute values are held to validate the user ID again to return to the “normal” state, thereby disabling (precluding) reduction of the data amount.